The Many Layers of the B-M/Facebook Smear Story

The news that Burson-Marsteller/Facebook whisper campaign story unfolded before our eyes this week. And as it did, there were so many details that added so many layers that reaction, understandably, has been tremendous.

At this point, Facebook and Burson are no longer working together, The New York Times reports. And, The Daily Beast writes (h/t to PRWeek) that the two Burson publicists that handled the campaign, former CNBC reporter Jim Goldman and former political writer John Mercurio, will receive another copy of the firm’s code of ethics (along with everyone at the firm) in order to get a refresher course on right and wrong. Interesting that two former reporters couldn’t clearly see the impropriety of this from the beginning, but we digress.

Reaction from the PR industry has been both critical and exasperated, with many on Twitter expressing a “you know better than that” tone with both the situation and Burson’s statement in response.

“It is practices like this that cause the general public to hold the PR industry in such low esteem,” Steve Lubetkin, a PRSA fellow and managing partner at Lubetkin Communications wrote in the comments section of PRNewser.

“This is akin to PR firms ghost writing client’s blogs, setting up ‘no-fingerprints’ coalitions, and conducting similar black ops tactics that accomplish nothing but embarrassing the client. Real PR professionals know this, and don’t do it. The upside is that it creates more business for crisis specialists such as myself,” Don Goldberg, a founding principal at Bluetext also wrote on this site.

“This incident raises even bigger questions about how the PR industry should operate within an environment where no conversation is sacred and transparency and disclosure are king. For example, should there be a standard set of ‘rules of engagement’ for PR professionals beyond even what’s already published by our self-governing bodies? On the other hand, is it reasonable or even possible to try and regulate common sense and good judgment?” Kwittken & Company CEO and founder Aaron Kwittken told us via email.

For Burson, this adds to the list of revelations about the work the firm has agreed to do. Forbes did a post today highlighting some of Burson’s lowlights, including work with the Saudi government after 9/11 and with Foxconn, a Chinese company accused of abusing its workers. Slate also commented on Burson’s questionable history here. And of course, there’s Rachel Maddow’s infamous rant.

These days, companies can quickly move past most scandals. But the PR industry as a whole maintains a bad reputation because of these individual ethical lapses. At the same time that the industry moves forward, taking on new clients and responsibilities, it’s continuously saddled with this reputation for bad behavior. Perhaps the industry could go even further if it would stop doing these sorts of things. Adding to the previous comments we received from the PRSA, the organization’s chair Rosanna Fiske said in an op-ed, “An infraction upon one of our own has an impact on how we’re perceived as individuals, how public relations agencies and major companies are perceived as corporate citizens, and how the profession as a whole is perceived.”

Facebook is also feeling repercussions over this whole mess. In its statement, the social network said the information it was trying to push was already public and “No ‘smear’ campaign was authorized or intended… The issues are serious and we should have presented them in a serious and transparent way.”

Helen Nowicka at Porter Novelli writes on the firm’s blog that Facebook may “still think of itself as a scrappy start-up at heart” but it’s a top global company now (Mark Zuckerberg interviewed President Obama for Pete’s sake).

“Regardless of whether there’s any accuracy in Facebook’s most recent claims, the problem it now faces is that its underhanded approach has become the story, not anything that Google has done,” she writes. “The Facebook brand has been unnecessarily damaged as a result, and that damage will last for some time to come.”

According to Gigaom, “hiring PR companies to plant negative articles” isn’t a new thing, but the fact that Facebook did it is a big indicator.

“[T]he sense of desperation that it implies about the social network isn’t helped by the fact that Burson-Marsteller couldn’t seem to get anyone interested in writing about the topic it was pushing so hard — despite the fact that privacy is a hot-button issue,” the blog writes.

MSNBC and Mashable are among the tons of other outlets that have looked at the scandal from Facebook’s business and reputation point of view, as well as the implications it has for the digital battle happening between Facebook and Google. TechCrunch says that Facebook’s response will be “say as little as possible and move on. And it will work.”

After breaking down Burson’s statement with a sledgehammer, the site tackles some of the big questions for Facebook, like why they just weren’t upfront with this information.

Facebook has now added reputation repair to the issues, including privacy, that it faces right now. Our colleagues at AllFacebook have a poll happening, asking what Facebook PR should do. Click here to share your thoughts.

Subscribe to Adweek

Featured Courses

Facebook MarketingBuild a fan base and grow your business on FacebookLearn more >Google AnalyticsMaster Google Analytics to build traffic and increase revenue for your brandLearn more >Content ManagementCreate, edit, and publish content using CMS platformsLearn more >Public Relations: Build Your PortfolioMaster the key documents you need to succeed in PRLearn more >See more Courses >